


Down the Garden Path, and what Alice found there (the Here We Are Again remix)

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Genre: Board Games, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Nursery Rhymes, Pastiche, Poetry, Werewolves, journeys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:53:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Alice throws a six, and finds herself on the square of the hypotenuse. But she's been here before, and she'll be here again, and perhaps she's already here...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alixtii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/gifts).
  * Inspired by [To Dream a Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268969) by [Alixtii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii). 



Alice had been letting her nephew cheat at Ludo – or perhaps not _cheat_ exactly, but she had been neglecting to claim her own second throw when her die landed on a six, and, when he moved one man to see where it would end up and (on deciding that he preferred the chances of a different one) forgot to move it back, she pretended not to notice.

Now that he had been taken off to have his face washed and be put to bed, she remained alone before the fire, picking up one piece after another and moving them around the board. Since every turn was hers, now, she continued not to trouble herself with the question of double throws for sixes, but simply moved one piece after another, as it pleased her.

'Such a curious game!' she said to herself. 'All this time and trouble to send the men all the way around the board, all for them to end up hardly any distance from where they started!'

She threw a four, and moved the first piece forwards. The next turn gave her a three, and she sent the second piece chasing after the first.

'It would make a pretty garden,' she mused, 'with those white paths, and square beds planted with flowers in red, blue and yellow.'

She had lately taken charge of the garden, and had more ideas than she knew what to do with.

A six, and she moved another piece to its starting square. 'Not for the green parts, of course: they would just be grass, and box for the edging.'

In her mind's eye she could almost see the neat hedges and the bright, formal, beds, and the people moving down the white-paved paths. Some would be slow and stately, stopping to examine a rose here and a sunflower there; some would be running after each other, shouting and laughing as they went. She bent forward to see what the perspective would look like, and felt a sofa cushion shift beneath her.

She just had time to say, 'Here we go again!' before she found herself tumbled in an undignified heap on a regular square of grass just as she had imagined.

Cautiously, she picked herself up and looked around. There were the box hedges; there (she peeped over) was the grassy path, forbidden for the moment, that led home; there was the funny lozenge-shaped bed, which seemed to have been planted with cabbages.

'Well,' said Alice, 'I did throw a six, so I suppose I might as well start.'

And she set off down the white path.

* * *

'There goes Alice – what a little monkey she is!' somebody said – perhaps it was her sister – but she had already scampered off down the cool, inviting, path between the shady trees.

* * *

It was a warm day. A bee had got in through the open schoolroom window and was buzzing around Alice's desk.

'The square on the hypotenuse,' said Miss Hardwick, 'is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.'

Alice, who knew perfectly well what the hypotenuse was, considered how one might balance that particularly large square on the rounded back of the hippopotamus. 'And what if the bee stung it?' she wondered.

Miss Hardwick looked sharply at her, but the hippopotamus was already lumbering off, with Alice on its back. She clung on for dear life: the square was very slippery, and the edges were sharp, and the hippopotamus' gait was unsteady. The bee was buzzing around its ears, but showed, as yet, no indication that it might be going to sting it.

Alice was very glad of this. 'For I believe,' she said, 'that not one of us would enjoy it.'

'You never know,' the hippopotamus said lugubriously.

'Well, would you?' Alice demanded, managing to shuffle so that she lay on her front and held on to a side of the square with each hand.

'You never know,' the hippopotamus said again, and continued on its way. The bee settled on the top of its head. Alice, no longer concerned by the immediate prospect of being flung off, took the opportunity to look around.

She had always understood that the natural habitat of hippopotami was the great rivers of Africa savannah. This was not Africa: in fact, Alice would have been certain that it was an ordinary English woodland path, had it not been for the bright green hummingbirds dipping and darting around them. The hippopotamus, however, seemed to be quite at home.

'Excuse me,' Alice said to it; 'do you have any idea where we're going?'

'You never know,' said the hippopotamus.

'Is that all you ever say?' Alice asked.

The hippopotamus shook its head in an affronted manner, but it didn't say anything.

'You ought to be able to say other things,' Alice said.

'You never know.'

The more Alice thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed, to say only, 'You never know,' over and over again. 'There must be circumstances,' she said, 'in which one does know.'

This time the hippopotamus both said, 'You never know,' and shook its head, so vigorously that Alice lost her grip on the square and slid off onto the ground. The hippopotamus paid no heed whatsoever, but kept on trotting away down the path.

Alice stood up and dusted herself down. She was not much hurt, beyond a little bruise, and she felt entirely able to continue her journey on foot.

'But where am I going?' she asked herself. She looked back the way they had come, and for a moment she thought that she saw her desk and the green schoolroom curtains there at the very end (or the very beginning) of the path; but then she saw that it was only a tree whose branches danced in the breeze.

Alice was, however, well acquainted with landscapes that appeared without warning and altered themselves without a by-your-leave, and acquaintance had taught her that the best course of action was to explore, and ask pertinent questions when the opportunity arose. So she set off down the chalky path in the footsteps of the hippopotamus.

* * *

The train must have stopped some time ago: the carriage was empty, and the door stood slightly ajar.

Outside the windows there was nothing to see but darkness. They must be in a tunnel, Alice thought; perhaps they were being held to allow a troop train through. But where had all the other passengers gone? She glanced up at the communication cord; it was undisturbed. If anyone had pulled it, they had not done so in this compartment.

Very cautiously, Alice moved to the door and listened. She could hear nothing: not the chug of the locomotive; not the metallic hum of the rails. Nothing seemed to be happening at all.

'Well,' she said to herself, 'I can't stay here all day;' and she opened the door and hopped down to the level of the tracks.

It was perfectly dark in both directions. She put a hand out and felt the smooth side of the carriage. 'I suppose,' she said, 'that I might as well follow the railway line.'

The ballast made for an uneven surface underfoot. Alice went slowly, for fear of stumbling.

The lights were all out, and everything was quiet. There was no one on the train, nothing in the tunnel.

'This is very odd,' Alice said; but nobody replied, not even Alice.

She went on, keeping a hand stretched out so that she could feel where the train was. At first, she counted the carriages (and the gaps between them), but somewhere between fifteen and twenty she lost count. A little further on, the side of the train became suddenly smoother; then it wasn't there; then it returned, and was curved. She had reached the locomotive, and it was dead cold. It must have been standing still for hours.

Beyond the buffers, Alice could just about make out the rails, faintly gleaming and leading onwards. She followed them.

They came to an abrupt stop a few hundred yards further on, in front of a sheer wall of smooth marble.

'Well!' said Alice, 'here's a thing!' For, as you have seen, she had never grown out of the habit of talking to herself, or to anything else that might be around her.

The wall rose up high above her; she craned her neck to see the top, but it just went on and on, and she wasn't sure whether the darkness she could see high above her was the top of the tunnel, or a dark sky.


	2. Chapter 2

'Excuse me,' said somebody at Alice's elbow, 'is this the way to Norwich?'

'To Norwich? why, no, I don't believe it is,' Alice said. 'There was a hippopotamus here a little while ago, so I think perhaps we might be in Africa.'

'Africa! No, that can't be right,' the newcomer muttered.

Alice glanced at him; he was a funny little man with a chin that stuck out as if it wanted to meet his nose, who carried a wicked, curved, sabre in his hand. 'Who might you be?' she enquired.

He bowed to her. 'I am the Man in the Moon, and this is the Moon.'

'That can't be right,' said Alice (with a cautious eye on the sabre); 'the Moon is thousands and thousands of miles away, up in the sky.'

'Ah,' said the Man in the Moon, 'that may be what it _looks_ like, but, as you see, it's just here.' He flourished the sabre, and it grew suddenly to five times its original size. The Man tipped it slightly aslant and sat in it like a canoe, paddling through the air alongside Alice with his long fingers.

'Then how big are _you_ really?' Alice asked.

'Ah,' said the Man in the Moon, 'that depends. Sometimes I'm the largest thing in the sky. Sometimes I'm hardly there at all.'

'I do wish you'd stop changing,' Alice said. 'It's very distracting.'

For the Man in the Moon had suddenly grown exceedingly plump and was now pirouetting atop the Moon (which had correspondingly expanded to a perfect sphere) like an acrobat in a circus.

'I can't help it,' said the Man in the Moon; 'it's in my nature. And in yours, if it comes to that, so you needn't be so particular. Did you say you knew the way to Norwich?'

* * *

The garden had become wild and overgrown. The neat topiary of the quarter where Alice had started had given way to scruffy sunflowers and straggling nasturtiums and marigolds. Now, as she tramped on, it hardly seemed to be a garden at all. There was a tangle of periwinkle at the base of the hedges and speedwell dotting the path. Morning glories climbed upwards and met overhead. Scarcely a sunbeam reached through the canopy, and the air was dank and chilly.

'You really should look out, you know,' said something at about the height of Alice's knee.

She looked down: it was a Peacock, who trotted alongside her, his long tail brushing the ground. 'Look out?' she said. 'What for?'

The Peacock spread his tail. 'What for? How should I know? But you should, all the same. Everyone says so. Similarly, if instructed to look sharp, look alive, look good, or look round, you should take care to appear sharp, alive, good, or round, accordingly.'

'How on earth can one appear _out_?' Alice wondered, but the Peacock was affronted and did not reply.

In the distance there came a sound like a howl.

The Peacock hopped up onto Alice's shoulder. 'There!' it said. 'I told you to look out!'

'Looking didn't do me any good at all,' she protested. 'It was listening that did it.'

'That's as may be,' said the Peacock. 'Look sharp!'

Alice didn't know how to look sharp. 'What is it?' she asked, but she started to run, anyway.

'Wolves!' the Peacock screeched. 'Look alive! And _don't look round_!'

This last was at least an easy instruction to follow, so Alice kept her eyes straight ahead and didn't stop running.

Shortly they were overtaken by a Wyvern, which was hopping down the path on its two clawed feet and helping itself along with great beats of its wings.

'Wolves!' it called as it flapped past them.

Alice, who was growing tired of the weight of the Peacock on her shoulder, would have liked a ride, but the Wyvern did not look very sturdy, and besides, it was already disappearing around a corner.

'Where did the wolves come from?' she asked the Peacock, instead.

'How should I know?' the Peacock retorted disagreeably. 'I didn't invite them.'

Before Alice could reply, the morning-glories gave way abruptly to a riot of rowans and Virginia creeper, and the Peacock shuffled ungracefully off Alice's shoulder.

'Don't stop, by any means,' he advised her. 'It isn't _me_ they're after.'

Alice would have liked to stop and get her breath back, if not to stop and argue, but she could hear the howling coming closer, and delay seemed unwise.

She ran.


	3. Chapter 3

The path had broadened out to become a road, but even so Alice found that she had to walk right at the edge of it in order to leave room for the Moon, which had expanded so much that it was now five or six feet across, and she had to crane her neck to look up to the Man. Since the Moon was still not quite full, it moved with an uneven pitching motion, which made Alice feel a little sick.

'Do you think you might stop the Moon growing like that?' she ventured. 'It's rather alarming.'

'Ah, now,' said the Man in the Moon. 'I can't do that. It's change, you see, and change is inevitable. So I can't evit it.'

'That isn't a word,' Alice protested.

'Ah! You see? It can't be done. The Moon changes. I change. You change.'

'I don't change,' Alice said; and then, remembering the cake and the bottle and the mushroom, 'at least, not that quickly. I haven't for years.'

'Ah, you do, though. You grow, and you shrink, you -'

But he was interrupted by a crash and a clatter, a flourish of trumpets and the beat of regular footsteps, and as they turned the corner they saw a regiment of red-jacketed soldiers marching down the high road. Alice leapt to the side. As for the Man in the Moon, he was so alarmed that he lost his balance, and the Moon rolled off into the ditch.

'Halt!' yelled the captain, and the soldiers stopped abruptly. 'Ten... _shun_!'

The captain looked rather doubtfully at them, as if he didn't quite trust them to stay where they'd been ordered; then he turned to Alice and bowed.

'Madam,' he said, 'the fifteenth Dragoon Guards, at your service.' He grinned, revealing rather sharp, pointed, yellowish teeth.

'How do you do,' said Alice.

'Is this fellow bothering you?' He indicated the Man in the Moon.

'No, not – well, only a little, but it's only that – no, really, you don't need to – honestly, not you, too...!'

For events had been happening rather faster than I can write them down. And those events went as follows:

_Firstly_ , the Man in the Moon had managed to get the Moon out of the ditch and roll it back onto the road.

_Secondly_ , that same Moon had expanded to fill the entire width of the road, and was now, moreover, a perfect sphere.

_Thirdly_ , every last man of the soldiers had dropped to his hands and knees, grown prodigious quantities of hair, and begun to howl.

_Fourthly_ , the Man in the Moon, apparently somewhat alarmed by this transformation, had clambered back on top of the Moon and set off down the road.

_Fifthly_ , those same wolves – for such they had become – had broken ranks and bounded down the road in pursuit of the Man in the Moon.

'Dear me!' said Alice, when the wolves had got far enough away for her to hear herself speak. She considered the respective merits of turning back and carrying on, and concluded that, equally dangerous beings having come from both directions, she might as well carry on.

* * *

Alice was running. Running and running and running. She knew that they were close behind her; she knew that if she stopped to look behind they would be upon her.

She ran.

And suddenly someone was running behind her; they put out a hand and Alice took it.

It shouldn't have been easier to run hand in hand, but it was.

'Who are you?' Alice gasped.

'No time for that. Quick!'

* * *

The road was uphill, and the small feet that pattered alongside hers couldn't go as fast as she could. Once, Alice might have comforted herself with the thought that this was only a dream, but she knew better than that now.

The wolves were almost upon them when they came across a cave – hardly more than a depression in the side of the hillside, really. But it was enough. 'In here,' she cried.

She watched in satisfaction as a wide sheet of some translucent material rose shimmering from the ground. It stretched all the way across the opening of the cave, forming a seal around the edges. That wasn't enough, though: if the wolves could see them, if they knew they were there, they might be able to break through. The stuff thickened, hardened, became opaque, until at last it was as solid as a stone wall, and Alice was content.

'There. We're safe.'

The little girl was quiet. At last, she said, 'How will we get out again?'


	4. Chapter 4

Alice had been following the road for hours. She had met nobody. Every now and again she caught sight of a dark furry shape, which she took to be a wolf, and, because turning back seemed pointless, she kept going.

She rounded a sharp corner. The path gave way to a few broken slabs, and ahead of her there was only a bleak wasteland of scrubby grass – and a wall.

'Now, what's that?' Alice asked.

The wolves bounded up to the foot of the wall and sprang back, snarling. Some of them sat back on their haunches and howled. Some just slunk away.

The wall stretched out for miles in both directions. There was no way around it, over it, or, so far as Alice could see, under it. Far above it, she could see the snowy peak of a mountain. Even if she could somehow scale the wall, she thought, she would have another impossible climb beyond that.

She looked back the way she had come. Night was falling, and she could not see more than a few hundred yards down the road.

'Can I go back?' Alice asked. 'No; I should stay here and wait for morning. I should stay awake, though; I don't like the look of these wolves. Come, let's say some poetry to pass the time. _The boy stood – the boy –_ No, how does it go? _The boy stood on the burning... the boy... the girl... the wolves..._

_The wolves prowled on the open moor_   
_Whence all but we had fled;_   
_I looked behind me, and I saw_   
_The Moon had turned bright red._

_Yes! bright and beautiful it rolled_   
_Along the open road_   
_And shone the way to sights untold_   
_That in its halo glowed._

_But frightened by the wolves was I_   
_That came when full it shone_   
_And, quick as I could blink my eye,_   
_Behold! The Moon was gone!_

_I would have gone along that trail -_   
_I had no wish to stay;_   
_But each attempt to leave must fail:_   
_this wall stands in my way._

_At length the sound of howling ceased -_   
_the wolves! ah, where were they?_   
_While I bewailed my lot, each beast_   
_had softly slunk away._

* * *

Alice looked back towards the deserted train; then she put a hand out and touched the wall.

'What do you want, Wall?'

This seemed to be the wrong question. The wall looked more glassy and solid than ever.

'Why are you here? Why were you built?'

Somewhere beyond her outstretched right hand, a stone fell.

'Who built you?'

It almost seemed to be growing warm under her fingertips.

' _I_ built you?' Alice guessed.

It grew warmer still, as warm as if the sun had been shining on it all through a summer day.

'Why did I do that? I must have had a good reason at the time, or, at least, I must have thought I did.'

The wall did not seem to know the answer.

'How I wish you could speak, Wall,' Alice said.

The wall spoke. It said, 'Then I can.'

'Then why didn't you before?'

Another stone fell, with a sound like a chuckle.

'Oh. You couldn't speak until I wished it for you, because I built you, and it's up to me. So could I just wish you away?'

The wall became instantly colder and more solid.

'No. You don't want me to. That's reasonable. Then tell me, Wall, why are you here?'

'I am here,' the wall said, 'for your protection.'

'Protection? What's on the other side?'

'I can't tell you that,' the wall said.

'Can't? Or won't?'

The wall shivered a little.

'Do _you_ know?'

'I can only show you,' the wall said.

'Then show me, please,' said Alice.

The wall trembled a little, but settled into as firm and stubborn a solidity as ever. 'You don't understand. I can't show you without letting _them_ through.'

' _Them_?' Alice repeated. 'Well,' she said to herself, 'at least I know now that there's more than one of whatever it is.'

The wall seemed relieved. 'You see? You don't want to go beyond. You don't even want to _see_ beyond.'

'But where else can I go?' Alice asked. 'I can't go back through the tunnel; it will only take me back to where I came from.'

'But this _is_ where you came from,' the wall said. 'How could you have built me, otherwise?'

'Then why don't I know what's there? Why don't I remember?'

'Because of me,' the wall said, with some satisfaction.

Alice turned to her left and, sliding her right hand along the wall, walked, counting her paces until she reached one hundred, and the brickwork of the railway tunnel. She turned around and walked the other way, a hundred paces, and then another hundred paces, and there was the other side of the railway tunnel.

'There's no way around, then,' she said.

'I do hope not,' said somebody else. It was a girl of about twenty, who held a very little child by the hand.

Even in the gloom, Alice knew them both. She had seen their faces in photographs and drawings – and, some time ago, in the looking glass.

'Alice,' she said to the smaller one, and, 'Alice,' she said to the other one.

Their frowns were identical. 'Alice?' they chorused.

'Alice,' she agreed.

'How very odd,' said the one who was just about grown up.

Alice indicated the wall. 'Do you know what's on the other side of there?'

'I should think so! I built it.' She glanced at the very small Alice. ' _We_ built it, I mean.'

'What for?'

'To keep the wolves out.'

A huge slab crashed to the ground.

'Wolves?' Alice echoed.

'They were just behind me!' the littlest Alice said urgently. 'We were running and running! But _she_ said that we could build a wall, and so we did.'

'How?'

'Well, just like that,' was the reply. 'We thought about the wall, and there it was. Because we needed it.'

'You must remember,' the older Alice said. 'I do it all the time, these days. I wouldn't make it out of any dream alive if I didn't.'

Alice did remember. 'But I don't dream,' she said, wonderingly. 'I haven't dreamed anything for ages.'

The light was growing steadily brighter, as if the wall was becoming transparent.

'You must have been here for ever such a long time,' she said.

'Oh, no,' they both said; 'it's barely been five minutes.'

The wall sagged in the middle, and then folded in on itself, as if someone were putting it away like a sheet.

From over her shoulder, she heard, 'I thought nobody would ever come.'

She knew before she turned around that it was another Alice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cf. [Casabianca](http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/casabianca/) (and there's perhaps a hint of [The Day is Done](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/day-done) in there, too).


	5. Chapter 5

Without the wall in the way of the daylight, they could see the open moorland, and the broken white path stretching away, and – nothing.

'Where are the wolves?' the smallest Alice asked, puzzled, and still a little frightened.

'Perhaps,' the oldest Alice suggested, 'they were never there at all.'

The other three turned to look at her in horror. 'No,' said the youngest-but-one Alice, 'they were there. But they went away.'

Now they could all see each other properly, too.

'Why!' cried the smallest Alice, 'what have you all done to your hair?'

'You turned yours up,' said the oldest Alice to the next oldest Alice, 'and if I tell you now that putting a pin just _here_ -' she patted a spot behind her left ear – 'stops the whole caboodle falling down, then I should think we'll all save ourselves – let's say five minutes a day – half an hour a week – just over a day a year – more than a month over the next thirty years.'

'Until _you_ cut it off,' the other retorted. She turned to the youngest-but-one Alice. 'And you had Nanny put yours in curl-papers so that you could look like Mabel, and that was a waste of sleep, if not of time. You never did look like her.'

'Well, you see, my dears,' said the oldest Alice, 'none of us could ever be Mabel, because we were all Alice.'

'We all _are_ Alice,' said the youngest-but-one, 'and what are we going to do now? We can't stay in this cave forever, and the path still doesn't go anywhere.'

'I don't believe it is a cave,' said the smallest Alice. 'Look: the walls are made of cloth.' She prodded one, and it billowed a little.

'So they are,' said the oldest-but-one Alice. 'Perhaps it's a tent.'

The light was growing steadily stronger and stronger; it was coming through the walls now, as well as from the open front, and now they could see that they were indeed inside a tall green triangle.

'Look,' said the youngest Alice, 'there's writing on the wall.'

'I hope it doesn't say, _Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_ ,' said the youngest-but-one Alice, who remembered from Scripture lessons that this was an unpropitious thing to have appearing on the wall.

'No,' said the oldest Alice, 'it's much shorter than that.'

This is what it said:

**Ǝ M O H**

'Emoh?' said the youngest Alice. 'What does that mean?'

They looked. And then they all said, together, ' **HOME**.' -

\- and the tent was only the schoolroom curtains, and the soft green grass, and the plush of the railway carriage cushions, and the brocade sofa -

Alice blinked and looked around.

'Come,' she said to herself, 'let's finish the game.'


End file.
